


prince charming for a day

by RenderedReversed



Series: this ain't no fairytale [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Harry Has Issues, Item Shop AU, M/M, Recettear AU, Tom doesn't know about them yet, adventurer!Tom, recommend to read pt 1 first, shopkeeper!Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 03:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8516980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenderedReversed/pseuds/RenderedReversed
Summary: In which Harry gets into the groove of running his item shop and dealing with Tom. Both of these things are surprisingly rewarding, but don’t let Tom know he said that.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [prince charming for a day - прекрасный принц на день](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14219742) by [Silwery_Wind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silwery_Wind/pseuds/Silwery_Wind)



Running a general store is hard work. It’s hard, honest (well, more honest than some of his previous jobs; scamming customers is relatively tame compared to party politics) work, and Harry is surprised how happy that makes him feel. He even hums a little as he bustles around, trying to set up for the day.

A fat pay check of a hundred thousand galleons for slaying a dragon and stealing its hoard? Alright. An escort mission for a foreign dignitary with tens of thousands on the line? Fine. Dungeon diving an ancient tomb for a magical artifact worth several cities? Sure, why not. Despite the large amount of coin he’d been making off those jobs, Harry has never felt the rush other adventurers talked about from earning so much in one go.

Adventuring has been his life since he was eleven years old—maybe that’s why. He never enjoyed it because he never knew there was any other option. Dangerous, life threatening quests and distress calls from beautiful maidens were just ordinary days for him. Ask him to save the world? He’s done it twice before; sure, why not go for another round?

And the adventurers, Harry’s had enough of those. High risk and high reward lured out the seedy types the most; they were eccentric characters at best and at their worst…Harry doesn’t even know if there is a bottom line for how bad adventurers can get. Some are no better than bandits, and others are criminals by any other name, hiding from the law under the umbrella of an Adventurer’s Guild.

The adventuring business just isn’t reliable. Running a common little shop is so different. He wakes up and he knows what he’s doing for the day; he goes to sleep without fearing for his life. There’s even stability dealing with customers—odds are they _aren’t_ going to pull a knife on him if he won’t give them a lower price, and that makes bargaining a hundred times easier in Harry’s opinion. As long as he knows the prices of his goods, everything’s kosher.

Harry’s pattern goes as such: if he has tons of stock, he’ll sell until he gets a bit low. If there’s a sale today, he’ll go out and pick up a few things regardless of what he already has. If he’s totally blown out or business feels slow with what he has, he’ll drop by the Adventurer’s Guild and hire Tom for some dungeon diving.

Things go great with that method. He’s finally started to see some regulars, his reputation in the town is growing, and more people stop by every day. Soon enough he might be able to put out some more expensive wares. Harry’s honestly excited to get to crafting again; it’s what his magic likes to do, but no one’s ever asked for his specialization because most people just associate him with kill counts and monster hunts.

“Knock, knock,” Tom says, tapping on the door frame despite already being halfway inside. He appears to be in a good mood, smug little curved smile on his face as per usual.

“Hi Tom,” says Harry, a little exasperated. “You know the shop’s not open yet.”

“Oh, but that’s the best time to come around,” he purrs. “No one around to interrupt.”

“Mhm, sure. If you’re not doing anything, could you set up the front window please?”

Tom huffs a little, but does as asked anyway. Harry’s discovered that the man has a pair of good eyes—he meticulously chooses the best items from the bunch and places them in the best order to attract shoppers. Even people who mostly window shop can’t help but come in and buy a thing or two.

Sometimes Harry wonders about that, but everyone has a part of their story they’re not open to sharing, so he never asks.

“Oh? This is new,” Tom remarks, holding up a small glass trinket in the shape of an owl. It glints in the light as he angles it toward the shop window, a soft milky white in some areas and completely clear in others.

“Hmm? Ah, that.” Harry sets down some things before walking over. “I was thinking of selling some things like this… A little girl mentioned seeing this sort of thing in a jewelry shop window, but of course it was expensive and made with some precious jewels. So I-ah, thought—”

“It’s cute.”

Something inside him relaxes at the praise. “Thanks.”

“Did you make it?” asks Tom. “I didn’t see anything like this from the monster drops.”

“Yeah, I did,” he replies, nodding along. “It’s a bit of a hobby? Super easy to make from colored slime fluid, so it hardly costs a thing.”

He doesn’t understand why Tom is looking at him that way. Struck again with self-consciousness, Harry shrugs, smiles, and tries to wave it off. “Well, anyway—”

“Even powerful sorcerers have interests like this, huh?” Tom says. It’s soft, and there’s no sound of an insult in sight. He sounds genuinely surprised, as if Harry had said something he didn’t consider before.

Harry fiddles with the end of his tunic. “I was pretty bad at it at first,” he says, both confessing and stalling because he doesn’t know what Tom wants him to say. “But it was really all I—” _could do besides killing things_ , “—had to entertain myself as a kid. So I got better. Now I just do it to see how good I can get them.”

“Would you show me?” asks Tom.

He didn’t expect that. Harry blinks. “Sure, there’s still loads of slime fluid in the back…”

Tom waits patiently, almost eager if that isn’t too much of an exaggeration. And it’s there, in the shop, slime fluid in a small dish with Tom sitting at the counter, light at his back with a childish curiosity bright in his eyes, that Harry is reminded this isn’t his first time showing someone this. This isn’t the first time someone has taken in an interest in _his_ interests, and it makes him a little nostalgic—only a little though, because this is Tom and there really isn’t anyone like Tom in the world.

Harry relaxes. He sets the dish down, barely hiding a smile, and takes out a pocket knife to begin his instruction.

“You just take a piece like this, see,” he begins, showing as he goes, “Don’t need much because slime fluid is kinda stretchy. And you know how it melts under high heat? Well if you _don’t_ melt it completely, it gets like taffy, and if you chill it, it gets all glassy…like this…”

In around fifteen minutes, Harry is holding a small glass snake in his palm. It has a little variation in its green stripes, discolored like dye was dribbled in and swirled. Actually, he could’ve taken far less time, but Harry’s too caught up in the way Tom’s eyes track the movement of his hands; it’s the first time he’s seen him too invested to even make a flirty comment.

He spends more time than necessary shaping the signature ‘S’ curve, giving it a little translucent split tongue and two dark, beady eyes on either side of its head. Harry waits until Tom is focused on the snake before twitching his pinky finger, and laughs as Tom jolts when the two halves of the tongue wave like a snail’s antennae.

“Cute, yeah?” he asks. All his self-conscious doubting is gone now, and alright, maybe it’s a bit more showing off as he makes the entire serpent slither from his hand and onto Tom’s, wrapping about the man’s ring finger until it’s a nice and proper coil.

 _Oh shit,_ Harry thinks. _That’s Tom’s ring finger_. Did he really just—

“You could sell this,” Tom says all of a sudden. “You could _sell this_ , Harry.”

Harry is too busy thanking every deity he knows that Tom didn’t say…something else about what he just did. He’s three seconds too late—but better late than never—when he replies very elegantly with, “Huh?”

“Is it durable, do you think?” asks Tom, holding his hand up to the light.

Scratch that, Harry is _extremely_ thankful to every deity he knows that Tom is too distracted to see his flush. “Um, depends on the quality of the slime fluid, but it can be yeah—um, it’s not really glass, you know, so—”

“Harry.”

“Y-yeah?”

Tom slips the ring off. When he sees that it holds its shape between his fingers, he slips it back on again— _on the same finger, just why, Merlin Tom are you trying to kill me_ —and says, smiling, “I have an idea.”

* * *

Tom’s idea, like many of his marketing ideas, is very, very good. Just from walking around the market during the evening, Harry notices several people wearing his animal ring creations. He thinks that feeling in his chest is a lot like pride, a lot like happiness, a lot like…

Harry stops by the Adventurer’s Guild.

“Here fer a late mission, Harry?” Hagrid asks.

“No, thanks, just here to see Tom!”

It’s not that Harry makes a lot of trips to Tom’s room, it’s just that he was there when Tom got his room key. That’s why he knows which flight of stairs to take, which hall to turn down, and which door—room 347—to knock on.

“Harry, what a pleasant surprise,” greets him after just one knock. “Do come in. Tea?”

“No than—” he doesn’t even finish before a hot cup of tea is sitting in front of him. Typical. “…Thanks.”

“It’s the least I can do for my benefactor.”

Tom Riddle is a menace. Harry sighs—but no, he has a reason for coming here, and his reason isn’t going to mean jack if he gets distracted again. It figures that the distraction is always Tom. Maybe he’s getting too rusty for this, or maybe he’s getting too _old_. Merlin, he’s only twenty-seven and he feels like he’s on the brink of a mid-life crisis. The life of an adventurer sure is short.

“Live by the sword, die by the sword,” as the saying goes. Fortunately, Harry took his sword and threw it as far away as possible. _Un_ fortunately, it might’ve come back in the form of a certain adventurer… Did he just figure out the answer to the universe or what?

Harry feels tired.

“I wanted to thank you,” he says regardless, “for today. It was…”

“No, no,” says Tom, twisting the ring _he’s still wearing_ around his finger. It’s almost like he’s been wearing it for years and gradually developed a habit because of it, which Harry knows is false because he just made that ring that morning. Tom was not wearing a ring there before this happened. The only possible answer is: he noticed. He definitely noticed. “I’m happy to help.”

Harry flushes. “You didn’t have to though,” he points out, plowing onward. “It’s not like it’ll pay off your life debt, or earn you any money—though if you do want a cut, obviously, sure, of course, I mean, it’s thanks to you that I—”

“Harry.”

Harry goes still. Tom’s gaze could liquefy him as good as any blacksmith’s forge, and it’s just so unfair. How did this even happen? How did he even let this happen, what.

“It’s for this,” Tom says, reaching out across the distance to tap his reddened cheek. Somehow it grows even redder; he’s so red now that there’s probably no difference between his face and a tomato. “See?”

His cheek squishes under the small pressure of Tom’s finger. No, Harry does not _see_ anything—other than Tom, smiling at him for a reason he doesn’t quite understand, like he’s pleased about something that he shouldn’t know about just yet. It’s like finding a present a week early. Even though he can’t claim the present, he’s still happy knowing it’s there, waiting for him.

“All I see is that you’re teasing me, glib tongue.”

Tom pulls away. “You’re not wrong,” he says, pleasant as always while being perfectly vexing. “Feel free to thank me all you like. And for as long as you do, I’ll keep helping.”

“Isn’t that a little backwards?” Harry blurts out.

“What comes first, the chicken or the egg?” Tom answers without really answering anything. Case in point: he’s the most vexing man Harry has ever met. (Well, alright, there was another one, but _that man_ doesn’t count. Gellert’s too far off the scales, he is. It would never be a fair fight.)

“…Good night, Tom.”

“Oh, leaving so soon? I’ll walk you back.”

“No thanks.”

“It’s dangerous to wander the streets alone at night.”

Harry shoots him an annoyed, who-do-you-think-I-am look. “Between you and me, who’s the sorcerer here?”

Tom smiles his copyrighted lazy, smug smile. “Out in public, where anyone could see us? Is this a trick question? Of course you aren’t a sorcerer, and I haven’t a magic bone in my body. Now, allow me to escort you back home...”

He admits Tom is a little too good at this. “Fine.”

* * *

Dinner for one ends up as dinner for two. They have potato and leek gratin with a side of barley bread—mostly because Harry just wants to see if Tom’ll react, but he doesn’t, and they both eat their plates clean. It’s enough to make him wonder what life would be like if he hadn’t picked Tom up from the roadside that night. He’d probably be eating his meals alone.

Harry stares down at his empty plate, soap suds a ring around the bottom edge where he’s scrubbing. The tiny rainbows blink in the dim light, and Tom, noticing that he’s stopped, nudges his shoulder from where he’s drying the dishes beside him.

 _Story of my life_ , Harry thinks, and washes away the foam and mist.

**Author's Note:**

> In the spirit of the election, here's an update. Originally I wasn't gonna get this out until a bit later, but with the finality of the election, I figured some of you would like something to take your mind off it. (That's basically what I did; binged fanfiction for as long as I could. I mean, I normally do that, but this time it was with a purpose.)
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>  Can we just do 2016 over again? The only good thing about this year is Pokemon Sun and Moon.   
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> Ahem. Back to these children------i don't know whether or not i want them to stop proposing to each other. On one hand it's getting nowhere. On the other hand.................. _OTP_

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [prince charming for a day (podfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9656504) by [MTKiseki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MTKiseki/pseuds/MTKiseki)




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